Right wing terrorism rising in the UK, 1 arrested in Leeds

February 25, 2019 | Brainwave Science

SITUATION

An alleged right-wing extremist has been arrested in Leeds, UK, on suspicion of planning acts of terrorism. Counterterror police are searching the 33-year-old man’s home following the operation. The man was arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation, and instigation of terrorist acts. The man has been taken to a police station in West Yorkshire for interrogation. The agency looking into this case is Counter Terrorism Policing North East. An investigation related to a suspected extreme right-wing activity led to this operation. Anyone with concerns regarding this matter has been urged by the Police Superintendent to speak to local officers or, contact the national counterterror reporting service. Recently, the head of UK counterterror policing warned of a rise in far-right activity. Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Neil Basu said that, “We’re dealing with a record number of operations and the potential of a growing extreme threat from the extreme far-right community for all kinds of reasons – not just because of the Islamist threat but things like Brexit, and some of the far-right political rhetoric which hasn’t helped.”

A 2013 analysis by Sarah Teich, a research assistant at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, found trends in Islamist lone wolf terrorism in North America and western Europe between 1990 and 2013: There is an increase in the number of countries targeted by lone wolves from the 1990s to the 2000s. There has been an increase in the number of people injured and killed by lone wolves. The effectiveness of law enforcement and counter-terrorism has increased. An increase in the number of attacks against military personnel has been observed. If we talk about organized groups, the UK predominantly is on the cross-hairs of terror groups like ISIS, but there is a growing risk posed by the far right following the Finsbury Park attack and murder of Jo Cox.

14 Islamist terror plots and 4 from far-right extremists have been foiled since the Westminster attack in March 2017. The trend towards younger, more violent Nazis is a real concern and needs to be monitored closely.

To identify a potential lone actor or even a member of a sleeper cell, using conventional methods is next to impossible. It is safe to say that there are no interrogation tools which can detect if a person has been radicalized or possesses knowledge of making bomb/IED. A lone wolf/or members of lone wolf packs are extremely difficult to identify before they have committed a crime. This is akin to identifying a member of a sleeper cell, a person with terrorist mindset and training, without him/her committing any crime. There should be a way to screen a person to detect if a person’s brain has been exposed to propaganda material and other methods of radicalization. If this can be done without the use of torture and coercion then it will be brilliant.

WHY ICOGNATIVE?

A US-based company Brainwave Science has developed a unique and intelligent security method which is able to distinguish between suspects and innocents.

iCognative is a test which can determine if certain information is known to the person being tested or not. It does so with astonishing accuracy. The information may be related to a certain crime. It can help to detect if a person could be the perpetrator, or a witness or otherwise. The information could also be information which a brainwashed person could have. In other words, if a person has been radicalized, then they would have been exposed to propaganda, forums, conversations, and ideas. The brain of such persons will always respond positively when they are shown related words of images. They will be familiar with certain images. iCognative uses a specialized headset which is worn by the person under test. Pictures, images, words or phrases related to a specific crime or related to the ideology being screened are shown to the test subject in succession. All this while, the headset looks for tiny positive voltages which the brain emits when it sees a stimulus it is familiar with.

In this case, the stimuli which can be used in the iCognative test of the arrested person can be images, pictures and words related to known right wing-groups, details of recent crimes in the vicinity, to detect an awareness of incriminating details. In order to screen other people for having an extremist ideology, the stimuli can be details from known propaganda material, forum posts, video grabs, intimate details of past extremist incidences, etc.

The iCognative computer analyzes these inputs from the headset and declares the result at the end of a usually 45-minute test. The result can be ‘information present’ or ‘information absent’. It signifies that the test subject’s brain does or does not contain the information being shown and then the authorities can proceed accordingly. iCognative is highly applicable in almost 90% of all civil and criminal cases. Contrast this with the DNA and fingerprints, which are applicable in only 1-2% of all cases.

iCognative is accurate (99+%) and reliable. It reports no false positives or false negatives. Unlike other tests like a polygraph, it has no known countermeasures. It saves costs and effort because it is easy to deploy, easy to learn, highly customizable, highly portable, non-invasive and instant.

The Counter-Terrorism Policing North East and other similar authorities must deploy iCognative to greatly enhance the quality of their interrogations and intelligence gathering.